Cradlepoint partners with Disaster Tech Lab to provide free emergency Internet to over 25,000 refugees in camps across Greece

London – August 15, 2016 – Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places, and things over wired and wireless broadband, has partnered with Irish voluntary organisation, Disaster Tech Lab, to deploy free emergency 3G and 4G LTE WiFi in refugee camps. The ruggedised technology is used currently in eighteen camps across the Greek islands and mainland. Cradlepoint’s technology is also being used to provide Internet access in mobile vehicles used by NGOs across Greece, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

As new camps are set up, Cradlepoint technology is used to provide first response emergency connectivity. There are two levels of access provided. One secure password encrypted network for authorities including the United Nations, aid organisations and the Greek military. This helps these organisations to communicate and process asylum applications securely, which is essential given that biometric data is taken and processed for every refugee.

The second is an open WiFi network for refugees who rely on smartphone technology to keep in touch with relatives and communicate with authorities. For example, on arrival in Greece, asylum seekers are required to make their initial application to the Greek authorities via a Skype call. Providing the connectivity needed is a real challenge as many of the camps do not have electricity infrastructure for months after being set up. The power needed to enable free connectivity often comes from solar panels, batteries or wind turbines, rigged up by Disaster Tech Lab.

Disaster Tech Lab is using Cradlepoint's COR IBR1100 series to get the job done. This is a compact, ruggedised 3G/4G/LTE router that provides highly available, cloud-managed networking for extreme environments. It is designed for mission-critical connectivity in environments such as police cars, ambulances and marine fleets. The cloud-managed solution scales quickly and is engineered to withstand extreme temperatures, humidity, shocks, vibrations, dust, water splash, reversed polarity and transient voltages. Cradlepoint’s Enterprise Cloud Management Portal allows Disaster Tech Lab to monitor and troubleshoot locally on the ground.

Evert Bopp, Founder and CEO of Disaster Tech Lab commented: “After a harrowing journey, refugees arrive in Greece usually in poor health and estranged from their loved ones. They often don’t even know which country they’ve arrived in and are then faced with navigating the appropriate authorities and their respective procedures to claim asylum. This is hard enough, but when you consider there’s no infrastructure to support them, it seems like an impossible task. In these camps there’s barely any sanitation, let alone electricity and WiFi provision. Providing reliable and robust 3G and 4G LTE connectivity is often a lifeline, quite literally. Cradlepoint’s technology enables us to almost immediately set up a temporary Internet service while we work on building a more permanent network. Cradlepoint’s COR IBR1100 is so easy to use and durable. We can get connectivity available within a couple of hours of refugees arriving at a new location.”

Hubert Da Costa, Vice President of EMEA, at Cradlepoint commented: “When I was contacted and told about the lack of Internet access in refugee camps I knew we had to help. We often provide connectivity in remote or extreme environments for customers. However, never before have we provided connectivity to a community who would rely on it for their basic existence. I’ve been humbled by the whole experience.”

About Cradlepoint
Cradlepoint is the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places and things over wired and wireless broadband. Cradlepoint NetCloud is a software and services platform that extends the company’s 4G LTE-enabled multi-function routers and ruggedized M2M/IoT gateways with cloud-based management and software-defined network services. With Cradlepoint, customers can leverage the speed and economics of wired and wireless Internet broadband for branch, failover, mobile and IoT networks while maintaining end-to-end visibility, security and control. Over 15,000 enterprise and government organizations around the world—including 75 per cent of the world’s top retailers, 50 per cent of the Fortune 100, and 25 of the largest U.S. cities—rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical sites, workforces, vehicles, and devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint network solutions as the foundation for innovative managed service offerings. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with development centres in Silicon Valley and Kelowna, Canada, and offices in the UK, Australia and Japan. Learn more at cradlepoint.com or follow us on Twitter@cradlepoint.

About Disaster Tech Lab
Disaster Tech Lab uses WiFi to reconnect disconnected communities in disaster zones across the globe. It also supports other disaster response organisation by providing IP-based communication services. In between deployments it researches and develops new technologies and new applications of existing technologies in order to improve disaster response work. The organisation operates from a bottom-up, grass roots perspective driven by the needs of those who we help. It also has a pool of skilled and experienced volunteers, which can be deployed in response to disasters across the globe.
Disaster Tech Lab is a non-profit organisation and depends on volunteers and donors to carry out its work.